Everyone Dies
by ThatGirl35
Summary: A drabble for LeviHan week, prompt fears


Everyone dies.

It doesn't matter how good a soldier you are. Eventually you'll be in the wrong place at the wrong time and you'll be eaten. Plain and simple.

Mike had been an excellent soldier. Second to Levi, in fact. And now? He was missing, and presumed dead.

This is why Hange didn't ever want to be in love.

In this profession, it was an unneeded emotion. By the time you get to know someone well enough to actually love them, they were gone. It was a cold, hard, painful fact.

Tomorrow was not guaranteed.

These thoughts bouncing in her head, it was no surprise that Hange couldn't sleep. Deciding it was pointless to continue the farce of sleeping, she rolled out of her discheveled bed and lit a candle. Shivering in the cool night air, she grabbed a casual pair of pants and a t-shirt off her chair to pull on. She was just pulling on her socks when someone knocked on her door.

_knock knock_

"Come in." Hange called out, already guessing as to which two people it could be.

The door opened and Levi stood there, framed in the doorway, silently looking her over.

"Shitty glasses, you look like hell."

Hange didn't even blink at her name. "Gee thanks. What's wrong? Did someone else?..."

The shorter man shook his head. "No, I just knew you'd still be awake, so I came to get you. Have you even eaten in the last two days?" Hange paused, and looked contemplative for a long enough time that Levi knew the answer. He sighed. "Want some tea in the mess hall?"

Hange blessed her stars that Levi was her friend. He always seemed to know when she'd gone too many days researching without eating, or when she'd have nights that she couldn't stand to be alone.

She offered him a small smile while she slipped on her shoes. "Tea would be wonderful."

The halls were silent as they walked, footsteps echoing quietly in the dark. Occasionally they would pass a door that had light leaking around the edges, or little sound coming from behind it.

Hange glanced at the door to her right as she passed it. "The new recruits seem to be holding together better than I thought they would. Better than the last squad at least."

Levi eyed the woman next to him. Was she really attempting small talk? She hadn't yet mentioned any of her research on the titans, no observations, no nothing. But small talk? She must be feeling much worse than she was letting on.

They arrived at the kitchen and Hange busied herself with preparing the water and prepping the tea leaves. While she worked on that, Levi stoked the fire as high as he could get it, bracing himself for a long night. A few chairs were already near the fireplace, and he moved two of the more comfortable chairs closer together and alongside a table. He then spotted a blanket on a bench that someone must've left behind and moved it over to where he'd moved their chairs.

Hange stopped moving suddenly, her shoulders hunched over. Her voice was small, almost childish. "Levi? Did...did you get his patch?"

No, he wasn't able to get his patch. No one even knew where his body was, if he was really dead or not. It was beyond likely that he was dead, but with no body to be found, who could say?

"Yes." He lied. "It's with all the others. Do you want it? I can get it from my room later." He watched her shoulders trembling silently for a moment or two before getting up and coming alongside her. Unsurprised to see her tears, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchef.

"Clean your face." He ordered. "You're making it dirty."

She seemed to collapse in on herself. Levi reached past her to pour the tea, giving her a moment to herself. He put the tea pot and cup down and turned towards her. She was still crying. Strong fingers grasped her shoulders and guided her backwards towards a waiting chair. He pushed her down into the chair and tossed the thin blanket at her. He walked back to the kitchen area and moved the tea pot and tea cups onto a platter and brought them out to where Hange sat.

He picked up the already poured tea and pressed the hot mug into her hands.

"Ouch! That's hot!" Life returned to Hange's face as she scrambled to put the mug down on the table and out of her burned hands. "Levi! That was hot! That hurt!"

He looked at her seriously. "Be glad you're alive and can feel such miniscule pain. Be glad you live to remember them. Be glad you can put your life to use, coming up with what we need to take them down." He poked Hange's forehead. "That brain in there thinks in ways we don't understand. Figure something out so we don't lose more men."

Hange's eyes glittered in the fire light. She looked away, letting the fire light reflect off her glasses, obscuring her eyes. "You're so strong Levi. I try to be strong, but I can't always be that way. Right now all my brain can process is that we lost one of us. Mike's been with us for years. To know he's not around the corner, not just a room away, it's unbelievable. We lose soldiers every mission. I've accepted that. But I never expected it to be Mike. It's as unbelievable as the idea of losing Erwin or you. I don't know, I just somehow took for granted how lucky we've been. We've always escaped with just minor injuries. And now..."

"Minor injuries? Oi, don't let Erwin hear you say that. I doubt he'd consider that concussion he got last year a minor injury."

Hange paused, then gave a small laugh. "True. He kept complaining about it. Such a baby."

Levi agreed, shifting slightly to pour more tea for the two of them. "He kept bitching about his head for days. He even asked Nanabe and I to help with his paperwork. Ugh."

Hange laughed aloud now. "He was pretty mad when I declared he was fine and healed up. His diencephalon should have been healed days before, but he kept milking it." She smiled softly into her tea cup. "Remember when Mike broke his nose?"

Levi closed his eyes and groaned. "Who'd forget that? He was so concerned he wouldn't be able to smell properly anymore. You never did say. What was it you used to convince him that he could smell again? All I know is that he wouldn't look me in the eyes for days."

Hange blushed slightly. "Ahhh...that's a story for another night."

The heichou looked at the researcher for a minute, studying her. She looked more lively and herself now, so he could relax a bit and tease her in his own fashion. He grabbed her shoulder and leaned in, face inches from hers. "Tell me. Now. Or I'll clean your room when you're not in it. I'll organize all your research papers. And I won't let you use Eren for research anymore."

She gaped at his threat, and chuckled nervously. "Well...Remember when I was trying to formulate a new laundry detergent to get stains out of our uniform pants?" She continued when he nodded. "Well...I think it was my second batch, and I was also playing around with human and titan pheromones the same day. At some point while making the batch, one of my new assistant's let me know that a vial of pheromones was missing. I think it was added to that batch by accident."

His eyes widened. So THAT was the reason he had almost over night surge in people following him around the base? He hadn't understood why so many girls were blushing when he walked by, or why even the guys were giving him odd looks. After several days he'd made a complaint about it in passing around Hange, and after a few days things settled down again. He gave her a sharp look. "And how did you fix that?"

Hange's smile resembled her normal self, albeit slightly nervous. "I snuck into your room while you were at a meeting and swapped the detergent with one without the contamination of pheromones."

"You were in my room without me there?" He suddenly had an urge to clean everything in his room and decontaminate it. Twice.

Her giggle was somewhere between aggravating and relaxing. "I didn't touch anything but the detergent. Promise. I couldn't take the risk of Mr Clean Freak to notice everything out of place and beating the crap out of me." She grinned. "Mike was my sentry for that little mission. He figured it out first and begged me to fix the problem quickly. Apparently your smell reminded him of his first girlfriend. He was complaining that it was unnatural. But it did convince him that his nose was working again."

"Shitty glasses, I'm going to be really re-thinking using anything you give me from now on. " Despite feeling slightly irked, Levi was amused. He'd wondered for ages about what had happened, and it was good to finally hear the story of that time. And it actually was pleasant to just sit and talk with Hange. It had been a long time since they'd done somethign like this. He tuned her out slightly while he thought, eyeing her discheveled hair.

She really was one of his closest friends. Despite how messy she was, and how much she could get on his nerves, he really did like her. She had fascinating ideas (not that he'd ever tell her that. Once she got started, she never stopped and he didn't have the time or patience for that.) But she was loyal and gained his respect. And for all his trying to stay distant, she'd somehow wormed her way through his layers of protection. He knew it would hurt when she died. He hoped it wouldn't be soon, if ever. But as they were all reminded with his team, and now with Mike's death, tomorrow was something only the lucky got to think about. And even then, many weren't about to call themselves lucky upon waking up and being reminded of what life they had.

Levi would never risk love. It was a great way to be broken and shattered in this line of work. Maybe, someday, if the titans were eradicated, if he lived that long, if he could have someone who understood him and didn't aggravate him too much... He eyed Hange, her gaze faraway and dreamy, staring into the fire. Light reflected off her glasses, the crackling fire casting shadows on her face.

No. He decided. He was content with friendship.

Dawn stole quietly into the room, touching it's warm rays of hope on the two slumbering soldiers. One curled in her chair, blanket tucked snuggly around her shoulders. The other stretched out in his, arms crossed over his broad chest. They stirred slowly, feeling less lost and less lonely, grounded and ready to face the day.


End file.
